On Media

The global Guardian

By HADAS GOLD

09/30/2013 09:45 AM EDT

In a kind of double profile, The New Yorker's Ken Auletta takes a look at the history of the British newspaper the Guardian, it's editor Alan Rusbridger and how their work on the NSA and WikiLeaks is part of an overall effort to revamp the paper and turn it into a global, money-making media company.

The stories surrounding the NSA and the relationship with Edward Snowden paid off for the Guardian, which is now the third most popular English-language newspaper website in the world, Auletta reports. But the Guardian has been losing money for the past nine years and the trust on which it was built would be exhausted in three to five years.

"To save the Guardian, Rusbridger has pushed to transform it into a global digital newspaper, aimed at engaged, anti-establishment readers and available entirely for free," Auletta reports. "In 2011, Guardian U.S., a digital-only edition, was expanded, followed this year by the launch of an Australian online edition. It’s a grand experiment, he concedes: just how free can a free press be?"

Auletta's piece also has some fascinating tidbits about the story behind the Guardian's relationship with Snowden's leaked documents, including the lengths the Guardian went to to keep the documents secure, including a "bunker" that was completely cut off from the outside world, and sending copies of documents to U.S. news organizations, like ProPublica, which have First Amendment protection.